Search

Subscribe via Email

September 23, 2008

Photoshop CS4 videos from Adobe

Adobe’s own Russell Preston Brown has posted a number of new video tutorials demonstrating features in Photoshop CS4. He’s taken a particular shine to the 3D features in Extended. Russell writes,

Content-Aware Scale: Once you learn about this new, intelligent, scaling technology in Adobe Photoshop CS4, you’ll be tempted to never use the standard Transform tools again. Russell Brown says, “This new feature is down right amazing!”. Check it out!

Spherical Panorama: Learn about one of the new 3D features in Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended. In this tutorial you will discover how to wrap any image around the inside of a sphere, to create a panorama. Then simply step into this digital space and use some of the new CS4 tools to look around your new world.

3D Quick Look: Get ready for an incredible 3D experience, as you view this quick-look at some of the new 3D features in Adobe Photoshop CS4. This tutorial will take you through some of Russell Brown’s favorite new tools for working, and experimenting, with 3D objects.

3D Mesh from Grayscale: Bring 2D images back to life with this new Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended technique for converting grayscale images into 3D objects. This tutorial will also demonstrate how to generate 3D depth maps directly from the image itself.

3D Eclipse Animation: Learn about some of the advanced features in Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended for animating 3D objects. In this project we will create a solar eclipse simulation from 2D images of the earth and moon.

Comments

Hello John,
Great post.
Has Adobe revamped the print dialogue? I hope so. I don’t know what they were thinking in CS3 by canceling both print boxes when you only want to cancel out of the last print box. In order to get back to the first print box (print with preview), you have to press print again. This is time consuming.

Hey, as much as i love everything I read about CS4 why oh why is the price for the German Version about double the US Price. A full Version of CS4 extended will cost about $2.2k in comparison to the US Version von 1.4k. How is that possible. Are translaters this expensive these days? And why does the download version cost even more. So it can’t be the shipping either.
Sorry I’m a little bit upset about that. Can you give a statement about this?

Peter — 2:12 AM on September 24, 2008

Those 3D features are looking pretty good! Is it possible to create/manipulate meshes via scripts? Or do we have to write temporary .obj files and import them? I’m thinking about an extrude/revolve script for paths/outlined type like the 3D effects in Illustrator…

Weldone for all your new products in particular photoshop CS4 Extended for us it will be very usefull and sure that for all the panorama comunity it´s a great. It´s a big new feature the Spherical Panorama, congratulations for everyone!!! ;)

Jack,
These tutorials are great, thanks.
One question about Spherical Panorama. I use PTGui app to render photos taken on my Nikon 10.5mm fisheye mounted on a Nodal tripod for my real estate photography business.
From watching Dr. Brown’s video, it “seems” I will be able to use this new feature in CS4 and not have to use PTGui. I hope I understand what I saw in this video.
Will I get a true 360 if I take the right kind of photos using my equipment, use photomerge?? and then the 3d tool set?? You and see an expample I did of a home here using PGGui and then an app Pano2v to render tion a flash movie. http://www.kblawson.com/panolawson_out.swf
My preference is to use photoshopCS4 for the whole project. It will help simplify my workflow, But I am unclear as to what I have seen from adobe so far.
What I do now. First I shoot the project, correct tonal issues, color correct in photoshop, then put into PTGui, then to PanoVR.
I know you are not too busy now,,,,,,,lol, but when time permits, can you address this question?
If CS4 will do what I think it does, that feature alone is worth the price.
You will have real estate photographer’s beating down the door to adobe, or maybe at least knocking…
Kind regards,
Ken from KY

Don Temple — 7:25 AM on September 24, 2008

I would like to see the videos but they don’t seem to work with generic viewers like Microsoft viewers. What should i use to see them?[QuickTime. –J.]

thinsoldier — 8:08 AM on September 24, 2008

Explain again why you felt the need to add painting on 3d objects?
If it were as fast as painting with modo or zbrush or deep paint or even maya then I wouldn’t care but _all_ the 3d stuff I’ve seen so far looks extremely slow, especially the painting.

SBG — 8:37 AM on September 24, 2008

Nothing makes me stop watching a video faster than the phrase “The Russell Brown Show”. You guys (Adobe) took what could have been a real learning resource with Adobe TV and made it into a dumping ground for this amateur buffoonery. If I were an exec there, I’d be looking into why such a large amount of time and resources were being funneled into something so bad and contrary to serving Adobe’s customers.[Don’t be hatin’! ;-P (FWIW, Russell has drawn a packed crowd for every single theater presentation I’ve ever seen him give, and CDs containing his videos fly out of the booth. Everybody’s got a different learning style; to each his own.) –J.]

JonPad — 8:50 AM on September 24, 2008

Dr. Brown rocks. All these demos make me itch to get my hands on the product. But I guess that’s the point, innit?

I fear I must agree with “SBG” regarding Russel Brown, who’s teaching style I do not find amusing at all, but only greatly annoying. My solution to my fellow men: turn OFF his Captain Kangaroo, kiddie-corner soundtrack and watch the graphics. You’ll easily learn 98% of all Brown’s actual content simply by watching the video stream.

Silly at times but he delivers. That ‘3D Mesh from Grayscale’ one was good.
Russell should check out
After Effects sometime.
Rich

Image Instructor — 4:32 PM on September 24, 2008

Before you (Adobe) make PS into a pseudo 3d-app, you should implement many of the very basic features for manipulate 2d pixels.
Or can I now load the actual index-palette (of a indexed color image) as my working color palette in PS CS4 with one click? No? Why not???[You can record an action to do the job. I’m sure that’s been true for many, many years. –J.]
Or is it possible to use all „paint“-tools direct along mirrored axes or repeated along a grid? (Thinking of EA Deluxe-Paint ano 1985 or so.)[CS4 can now do that through–guess what?–the 3D engine. –J.]
An there where many other Features in Deluxe-Paint the where better (form the workflow-point) than in PS CS4![Feel free to be more specific. –J.]
Where are the options for the „mosaic“-fIlter to use it with rectangular (not only square) tiles?[In 6 years on the team I’ve never heard that request, but it should be pretty easy to accomplish with the new Pixel Bender gallery plug-in. (Update: I just checked, and it’s already supported in the new plug-in.) –J.]
And when should came the day that we can use plug-ins direkt in the image window not in a separate one?[We’re working towards that. –J.]
These 3d features where not more than a bad excuses.[Try to ask a few more questions before being so quick to condemn. –J.]

Jarek — 4:47 PM on September 24, 2008

The 3D features are really stunning, but I can’t imagine a worse example to show the mesh from Grayscale feature.
Don’t get me wrong – creating a mesh from a bumpmap is something that’s nice, BUT the canyon image showed exactly how bad the algorithms are regarding understanding of depth, lighting, elevation, etc.

As a photojournalist and editor, content-aware scaling makes my skin crawl just a little bit.[Yeah, but the Iranian state news agency loves us. ;-P –J.]
The rest is great!

Image Instructor — 4:49 PM on September 25, 2008

[Thank you for the answers, John! Honestly! :-) — II.]
You can record an action to do the job. I’m sure that’s been true for many, many years. –J.[Nice hint, but it‘s only a workaround for a looong missing feature. It can’t substitute a real, permanent linked and updated index-pallet to a improved color-pallet. — II.]
CS4 can now do that through–guess what?–the 3D engine. –J.[In realtime? Can I see a true preview of my mirrored or repeated brush? Is it possible to set the anchor of the axes or the grid exactly on pixels? How easily is it to redefine the the axes or the grid? — II.]
Feel free to be more specific. –J.[Gladly:
Redefine the size, the aspect and the rotation of a brush by (pressing a special key) and simply drag the mouse.
Grab a colored (not only gray scaled one!) brush and use it for painting and/or fill patterns in one step (drag a rectangle or ellipsis around the image part).
Draw lines or other geometric forms with these brush (colored or in palette foreground or background color with the right mouse button) in one step.
Work modular, change the tool but not the brush or color. (This could be a preference or option in the new application bar.)
Draw a ellipsis (or rectangle) and change the size/aspect, the rotation in one step!
Having keyboard shortcuts for next or previos color/background color.
Simply generate new colors in the color palette from a start and a end color (Like a gradient, but as single colors. Keyword: color ranges.)
Rearrange or remove more then only one color in the color pallet.
Highlight all pixels in the image with the same color that is actual selected in the color pallet. (One Klick! Yes, I know the workarounds…)
Redefine/adjust the document grid, its aspect and its origin direkt in the image by dragging a simple tool. (What about grid rotation or free definable grid points?)
(Animated Brushes) And so on, and so on…I think photoshop could and should learn many workflow improvements from this very old but gerat app, Deluxe Paint (But only the orignal Amiga Version III from Dan Silva, not the newer ones!). — II.]
In 6 years on the team I’ve never heard that request, but it should be pretty easy to accomplish with the new Pixel Bender gallery plug-in. –J.[I will see. For me it sounds curious that nobody has this idea to make this simple very old filter more flexible. It should be a snack for the adobe programmers. — II.]
We’re working towards that. –J.[Great to read about that! — II.]
Try to ask a few more questions before being so quick to condemn. –J.[Ok, you’re right. But when I saw this videos, with this (sometimes ridiculous presented) 3d-effects that every professional have in his other tools, and then thinking over the things in PS that were unsolved over so many years, its very hard to stay cool.PS: But wait, I have more simple but good (workflow) improvements for PS. For example: There is a very old filter called offset. It’s useful if you want warp around your image or repeat its edges while moving it. But what I miss is a checkbox/option for the move tool to enabled the same features (warp around, repeat edges) for it. — II.]

James Conner — 3:54 AM on September 28, 2008

Content aware scaling is both impressive and frightening. Impressive, because of what it can do. Frightening, because of the potential for fraud.
If memory serves me correctly, the National Geographic got into trouble some years back by altering the positions of pyramids to fit the needs of the artist designing the cover. Now, Photoshop CS4 provides the tools to reposition pyramids and everything else.
I wonder how many images manipulated in this manner will bear a disclaimer? Will they inform the viewer that “This image was scaled, but not proportionally, and therefore the spatial relationships in the image are not the relationships found in the original scene.?
I find myself wonder whether a more accurate name for the feature would be Fraud Concealing Scaling.

Alexandre — 9:47 AM on September 30, 2008

@James Conner
I don’t find Seam Carving frightening. I’ve been successfully using it for over a year as a GIMP plug-in. It’s slick and useful.
Sure, you wouldn’t want to see it being used in PJ, but it could be same frightening to see chain saw in open sale when there are so many horror movies around about maniacs ;-P

Haruspex — 7:49 PM on October 04, 2008

I have to be honest… Listening to Russell Brown makes me feel like I’m watching a “How To” for children. Granted, each person may have their own learning style, but don’t they feel just as patronized? I’d like to be introduced to these new features by a someone on a perceptively higher intellectual level. I’m not saying Russell Brown is unintelligent, but that his voice comes off that way.

Haruspex — 2:39 PM on October 05, 2008

“I find myself wonder whether a more accurate name for the feature would be Fraud Concealing Scaling.”
No James Conner, that would not be a more accurate name. Photo manipulation has been useful for fraud since day one, but also useful for other things. Having a new method for photo manipulation, while possibly a new method for fraud, does not imply that will be its primary use. Fear mongering is not appreciated.

David Cooper — 10:38 AM on October 07, 2008

Hi John could you please drop a line if you get time on your and Adobes thoughts on an Elements Creative Suite? This must have been thought of before but i cant find any info on user sites. Is it something you guys could put together so users who dont need full CS3 or 4 features can keep to the Adobe brand kind of “ilife for the rest of us” Hope this get you at Adobe thinking best wishes and many thanks for some truly fun to use software D.

terrencemichael — 6:04 AM on April 08, 2009

To those who are so intelligent or so they think, are better than Russel Brown, shut up and do a better show then,your own intelligent is a legend in your own minds.